Constraining the shape of dark matter haloes with globular clusters and diffuse stellar light in the E-MOSAICS simulations

Reina-Campos, Marta; Trujillo-Gomez, Sebastian; Pfeffer, Joel; Sills, Alison; Deason, Alis J.; Crain, Robert A.; Kruijssen, J. M. Diederik

doi:10.1093/mnras/stad920

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 97 publications

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“…Globular clusters (GCs) are ancient, gravitationally bound stellar systems that are among the oldest luminous objects in the Universe. They provide important insight to a broad range of fields in astrophysics, including stellar and chemical evolution (van Loon 2010), clues to the star formation and assembly histories of galaxies (Forbes et al 2018), constraints on the epoch of reionization (Corbett Moran et al 2014;Salvador-Solé et al 2017;Ma et al 2021), the role of dark matter in structure formation (Kruijssen et al 2019;Reina-Campos et al 2023), and the distribution of dark matter in present-day galaxies (Hughes et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

PHANGS Hubble Space Telescope Treasury Survey: Globular Cluster Systems in 17 Nearby Spiral Galaxies

Floyd,

Chandar,

Whitmore

et al. 2024

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We present new catalogs of likely globular clusters (GCs) in 17 nearby spiral galaxies studied as part of the PHANGS Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Treasury Survey. The galaxies were imaged in five broadband filters from the near-ultraviolet through the I band. PHANGS-HST has produced catalogs of stellar clusters of all ages by selecting extended sources (from multiple concentration index measurements) followed by morphological classification (centrally concentrated and symmetric or asymmetric, multiple peaks, and contaminants) by visually examining the V-band images and separately by a machine-learning algorithm which classified larger samples to reach fainter limits. From both cluster catalogs, we select an initial list of candidate GCs which have B − V ≥ 0.5 and V − I ≥ 0.73 mag, then remove likely contaminants (including reddened young clusters, background galaxies misclassified by the neural network, and chance superpositions/blends of stars) after a careful visual inspection. We find that ≈86% of the color-selected candidates classified as spherically symmetric and 68% of those classified as centrally concentrated but asymmetric are likely to be GCs. The luminosity functions of the GC candidates in two of our 17 galaxies, NGC 628 and NGC 3627, are atypical, and continue to rise at least 1 mag fainter than the expected turnover near M V ∼ −7.4. These faint candidate GCs have more extended spatial distributions than their bright counterparts, and may reside in the disk rather than the bulge/halo, similar to faint GCs previously discovered in M101. These faint clusters may be somewhat younger since the age–metallicity degeneracy makes it difficult to determine precise cluster ages from integrated colors once they reach ≈1 Gyr.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

PHANGS Hubble Space Telescope Treasury Survey: Globular Cluster Systems in 17 Nearby Spiral Galaxies

Floyd,

Chandar,

Whitmore

et al. 2024

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Galaxy archaeology for wet mergers: Globular cluster age distributions in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies

Valenzuela,

Remus,

McKenzie

et al. 2024

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Identifying past wet merger activity in galaxies has been a longstanding issue in extragalactic formation history studies. Gaia's 6D kinematic measurements in our Milky Way (MW) have vastly extended the possibilities for Galactic archaeology, leading to the discovery of a multitude of early mergers in the MW's past. As recent work has established a link between younger globular clusters (GCs; less than about 10-- year old) and wet galaxy merger events, the MW provides an ideal laboratory for testing which GC properties can be used to trace extragalactic galaxy formation histories. To test the hypothesis that GCs trace wet mergers, we relate the measured GC age distributions of the MW and three nearby galaxies and to their merger histories and interpret the connection with wet mergers through an empirical model for GC formation. The GC ages of observed galaxies are taken from a variety of studies to analyze their age distributions side-by-side with the model. For the MW, we additionally cross-match the GCs with their associated progenitor host galaxies to disentangle the connection to the GC age distribution. For the modeled GCs, we take galaxies with similar GC age distributions as observed to compare their accretion histories with those inferred through observations. We find that the MW GC age distribution is bimodal, mainly caused by younger GCs (10-- year old associated with Gaia-Sausage/Enceladus (GSE) and in part by unassociated high-energy GCs. The GSE GC age distribution also appears to be bimodal. We propose that the older GSE GCs (12-- year old) were accreted together with GSE, while the younger ones formed as a result of the merger. For the nearby galaxies, we find that clear peaks in the GC age distributions coincide with active early gas-rich merger phases. Even small signatures in the GC age distributions agree well with the expected wet formation histories of the galaxies inferred through other observed tracers. From the models, we predict that the involved cold gas mass can be estimated from the number of GCs found in the formation burst. Multimodal GC age distributions can trace massive wet mergers as a result of GCs being formed through them. From the laboratory of our own MW and nearby galaxies we conclude that the ages of younger GC populations of galaxies can be used to infer the wet merger history of a galaxy.

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JWST photometry of globular cluster populations in Abell 2744 at z = 0.3

Harris,

Reina-Campos

2023

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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JWST imaging of the rich galaxy cluster Abell 2744 at z = 0.308 has been used by the UNCOVER team to construct mosaic images in the NIRCAM filters. The exceptionally deep images in the (F115W, F150W, F200W) bands reveal a large population of unresolved pointlike sources across the field, the vast majority of which are globular clusters (GCs) or Ultra-Compact Dwarfs (UCDs). To the limits of our photometry, more than 10,000 such objects were measured, most of which are in the halos of the five largest A2744 galaxies but which also include GCs around some satellite galaxies and throughout the InterGalactic Medium (IGM). The measured luminosity function covers almost four magnitudes and follows a classic lognormal shape, though the GCLF turnover point still lies fainter than the photometric completeness limit. The colour index (F115W − F200W) in particular covers an intrinsic spread of 0.5 mag, clearly resolving the expected range of GC metallicities. The overall results are consistent with a large, normal GC population seen at a 3.5 Gyr earlier stage of dynamical evolution.

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Constraining the shape of dark matter haloes with globular clusters and diffuse stellar light in the E-MOSAICS simulations

Cited by 4 publications

References 97 publications

PHANGS Hubble Space Telescope Treasury Survey: Globular Cluster Systems in 17 Nearby Spiral Galaxies

PHANGS Hubble Space Telescope Treasury Survey: Globular Cluster Systems in 17 Nearby Spiral Galaxies

Galaxy archaeology for wet mergers: Globular cluster age distributions in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies

JWST photometry of globular cluster populations in Abell 2744 at z = 0.3

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